It has also created a subclass of women — an under-groundswell — who are fighting to retain their most important right — to be feminine.

We are women who:

• Do not need the Equal Rights Amendment to grant us equality with men. We are created the same as men — in the image of God, who is neither male nor female, therefore our inalienable rights — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — are already guaranteed to us by the Constitution, and we do not need Congress to validate our importance or existence.

• Do not want to be treated with the same respect one man affords another. Ah, I can hear the collective “What the (s) … !” Now hear me out. We want to be treated with more respect. We don’t want to be subjected to “locker-room” talk. We want you to open doors for us. We want you to pull out our chair in a restaurant. We want you to take our arm or hold our hand in public — something we hope you are not doing with your guy pals. We want you to carry the heavy stuff, open stuck jar lids, and fix the car. This does not mean that we won’t pay for dinner, or contribute to the family budget, or carry our weight in any endeavor — we will — or that we can’t carry the heavy stuff, open stuck jar lids, or fix the car. Most of us can do that. But we would appreciate it greatly if a man would flex his brain or muscles and do that for us.

• Are emotional beings. We want the world in general to recognize that women listen, see, and act from the heart. Women are collectively and singularly unique that way. Some men have been gifted with the same ability, granted, but it is the woman who knows what her child’s cry means, what her best friend’s silence is saying, what her beloved’s various touches signify. A woman may not understand the words another man or woman speaks, but she will watch the person’s face, she will pay attention to the set of the shoulders, the placement of hands, the direction the eyes move, and will “read” the words in that manner. Do you remember trying to lie to your mother? How’d that work out for you? Yes, we have a sixth sense, that subtle perception of the unseen world. We do not do these things consciously, it is automatic—a sub-conscious act.

• Are warriors of particular renown. We are Queen Esther of the Old Testament, who saved her people; Joan of Arc, who led the French Army against the English Invasion of Orleans; Golda Meir, the “Iron Lady” of Israeli politics and Israel’s fourth prime minister; Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady” of British politics, and the only woman to be elected prime minister of that empire; Catherine of Siena and Mother Theresa, who dedicated their lives to helping the poor and needy; Florence Nightingale, the mother of modern nursing; Rosa Parks, who refused to be relegated to the back of the bus; Frances Perkins, the first woman member of a presidential cabinet (Franklin Roosevelt’s), Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American congresswoman; Mary Katherine Goddard, the editor of the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, the first newspapers that bravely and defiantly published the Declaration of Independence; Louise Blanchard Bethune, the first woman inducted into the American Institute of Architects; Wilma Rudolph, the greatest woman sprinter in history; Sally Ride, the first American woman in space; Marie Curie, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics and Chemistry; Maria Montessori, who did phenomenal and groundbreaking work with mentally disabled children and adults; Sandra Day O’Connor, justice of the Supreme Court.

We are every woman who works two jobs to support her family, sacrifices her own wants and needs and stays home to raise her children, protests war, supports the troops, ties a shoe, sews a flag, bakes a cake, drafts a proposal, stands proudly at attention, and kneels in prayer.